Your best defense is to block the malware before it can infect your PC. Use an antivirus program, keep it running whenever your PC is on, and keep it up-to-date. Don’t click links or download files from suspicious emails—even if you think you know the person who sent it. Finally, be careful about downloading and installing software.
If ransomware strikes, only a good backup can save your files, your money, and your dignity. Not every backup is good enough, though.
As the ransomware quietly encrypts your files, your backup program will likely back up the files in their newly encrypted, and therefore useless, versions. So you need a program that does versioning—saving older versions of your files. That’s not too much of a problem. Most backup programs have this feature.
